Outine article - March

Should you be interested, you can read my March article for Outline magazine here (p.34). The recipe won't be anything new to regular readers, BUT you can read my month's musings and blasphemous links between Jesus and artisan baking...

Pop-up shop

Attention Norfolkers - this Saturday, I will be selling baked goods at the above. How about you come say Hi and consume some mega calories?

Banana and Nutella cake

Excuse the absence. Bloody houses, bloody decorating, etc. Anyway, moving on....

There is a trend in the blogging word, it seems, to be constantly announcing exciting news on the horizon. The writers of many of the blogs I read - mostly the ones I follow specifically to make myself cross - are forever shouting about new projects and collaborations, soon to be revealed. But often you never hear any more about it, or it turns out to be something unnecessarily dull, like a new sponsor, or a competition to win a pair of mittens made out of cat hair.

So recently, when I got my own little bit of exciting news, I kept it to myself; hidden away in some secret place (a bit like the eyeshadow I stole when I was 13 and then hid under my bed for the next five years, in fear that a wondering policeman would spy my sparkly eyelids and just KNOW). I was reluctant to shout it from the rooftops, in case it never come to anything, or I'd sound like one of those knobends who constantly retweet praise on twitter.

But now that it's actually happened, I feel that I can make a bit of a fuss about it. Perks and compliments are few and far between in blogsville, so I don't feel too guilty about the ego trip. And it seems fitting, with Sod Nigella recently celebrating its first birthday *weak party blower sound*.

So my news is this: I am now the monthly food columnist for Outline magazine - a news/reviews/what's on type publication for the yoof of Norwich. Most famously it features a spread of photos of people on nights out, which as teenagers you would check furiously to see if you'd been snapped on the raz at Po Na Nas. Being the same age as me, the editor, Emma, has recently decided to start adding a few more features for the prematurely middle aged, which is where yours truly comes in.

Of course, I don't get paid vast sums of money or anything professional in THAT sense, but I do get to yell things like "Can you think of an example of X, it's for a thing?" and "Don't bother me, I'm on a deadline!" at Ben. The beach hut in Barbados is a while off yet, but I can say that my name is in print and being circulated to the masses of Norwich.

Wanna see? Well you can do so here (p.28). You can expect much of the same as what you get here - a lot of swearing and amateur cooking techniques, but within a word limit and on a less sporadic basis.

For my first article in Feb, I was tasked with writing about pinterest (a subject which I feel predictably cynical about, at the same time as finding it quite useful) and recreating a recipe from my own pinnings. This was the outcome: a banana and Nutella cake.

Turns out Ben doesn't like banana cake. Shame.

Bananutella Cake

4 eggs

8oz caster sugar

8oz stork/butter, softened

10oz plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2tsp cinnamon

Icing

300g icing sugar

200g cream cheese

2 heaped tbsp Nutella

Mix together all of the cake ingredients, except the banana. I’m a great fan of bunging it all in together, but you can cream your butter and sugar and so forth, if you’re that way inclined. When smooth, stir in your bananas.

Decant into two round, greased cake tins and bake for about 45 mins at gas mark 3/160C. Check after half an hour by inserting a skewer into the middle – if it comes out clean your cake is done, if it’s got some mix on, shove it back in for another ten mins at a time until done.

Once cooked, allow your cake to cool and make the icing by mixing the icing sugar (you do have to sieve that I’m afraid), cream cheese and Nutella.  Make sure to mix it well, so you have a smooth consistency. Then splodge it on to your cake in whatever manner takes your fancy, and scoff.

Mountain Bakery's easy peasy Dutch oven bread

Hands up who sees the words 'Dutch Oven' and immediately thinks of the tactical, under-duvet fart technique? You too? Jolly good, glad we've got that out of the way.

Moving on from toilet humour, I've got a bit of a confession to make....I've never made bread before. I know by now you've all come to see me as some perfect and peerless baking guru (ahem), but this is the truth of it. The problem is that I'm lazy; I like instant gratification. I can't be doing with sitting around waiting for the yeast do its magic and then go seven rounds in the kneading ring every few hours. I don't find it therapeautic, it makes my weedy arms hurt. 

But, whilst I am lazy, I am also a total lemming. I'm a fan of followng the crowd, and right now the crowd is making its own bread and social networking it in my face. I see the photos on instagram and I think to myself, 'I want a piece of what they've got'. So, I had to get my act together and make some goddamn bread.

CHEERS FOR THAT, YOU SMUG BASTARDS.

I browsed a few recipes and was about to relent and use one by that smarmy goblin, Paul Hollywood, but then Lo! Behold! Like some beacon from heaven, this recipe sprung up in my blog feed, which requires absolutely no kneading, and very little effort of any sort. It is so easy that is has actually changed my whole approach to bread buying, in that I've completely given up buying any from the supermarket. Throwing this together is as easy as walking to the shop (unless you need to walk to the shop to get the ingredients - in which case, may I recommend Ocado?) and a darn sight cheaper. All you need is a little forward planning, to allow for the dough to rise. Oh, and it's a bit of a bugger to wash up after, there's no way around that.



The recipe comes from the lovely Rose, of Mountain Bakery; a micro bakery, based in Noriwch. Rose runs Mountain Bakery in her spare time, as a distraction from the day job, and can be found at various fairs and stalls of a weekend. She also runs a genius bread club, whereby for £12 a month you get a weekly bread delivery (still warm from the oven) and occassional little extras which Rose thinks will compliment the bread. 



We had our first delivery on Friday; not to our door, but to the pub which we happened to be in when the bread came out of the oven. A gorgeous little spelt, rye, and fennel loaf, with a pot of rhubarb and vanilla jam. Having a warm, scented loaf in my handbag for the evening was somewhat torturous, and I have to admit to, after a few wines, passing the jam round the table and us all ungracefully sticking our fingers in for a try. We're pure class.



The jam is divine, and the bread is fucking excellent, so I recommend all of you Norwich bods get signed up to Bread Club (first rule of which is that you MUST talk about bread club and make this girl deservedly rich).

Whilst I am usually inclined to dick about with a recipe, on this one occassion I refrained, so I am simply going to quote Rose's method. You also get a lovely little instructional video, made by Spindle Productions.

No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread Recipe

No-knead Dutch Oven Bread from SpindleProductions on Vimeo.

¼ teaspoon of dried yeast

350ml tepid warm water (so that when you dip your finger in, you can’t really feel any change in temperature)

400g strong white flour

1 ½ teaspoons of salt

The night before you want to bake, start off by combining the yeast with the warm water. You should start to see little bubbles appear at the edges and the water should turn milky, this means that the yeast is waking up nicely.

In another bowl, mix the salt and flour together well and then add to the water and yeast mixture. Turn it with a spatula until everything is mixed, it will look wet and shaggy, but that’s fine, cover with cling film and leave at room temperature overnight. The dough will enlarge to at least twice it’s size as it proves – so make sure it is in a large bowl and has room to grow.

In the morning take some flour and generously coat your work surface. Scrape your dough out of the bowl – be careful with it, as you don’t want to manhandle it too much at this point, as you may knock out some of the air that’s developed inside it during proving, which will give you a nice holey texture when baked. Put your casserole pot in the oven, and preheat to 250 degrees centigrade, fold the dough over on itself once and cover with a tea towel whilst you’re waiting.

Once your oven is up to temperature, carefully take out your casserole pot, scoop up your dough and put it in. With a lid on, return the dish to the oven for about 40 minutes. You may (as I usually do) want to take the lid off the pot about 10 minutes prior to taking the loaf out, so that the crust is all crispy on top.

Et voila! Yummy homemade bread for breakfast or brunch, with hardly any effort at all!

Sweetcorn fritters

Are they fritters or pancakes? I'll be damned if I know.

I wasn't going to post these (hence the terrible photos), but someone on twitter asked if I would - and I'm totally swayed by even the merest hint of flattery - so here you go, people.

The reason for my initial reluctance, is that I fear you all know how to make these aleady and I'm preaching to the converted. I've seen a lot of recipes for them floating around. But then I made a - frankly, Nobel Prize worthy - discovery, which I decided I needed to share with the world. And that is....

YOU CAN PUT THEM IN THE TOASTER THE NEXT DAY AND THEY TASTE OF DREAMS

Seriously. Toast, spread with a bit of butter, a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon and ay, caramba!

Originaly we ate these with salmon, an avocado and spring onion salady thing, and a bit of crème fraîche. They go great with Mexican/Caribbean/Deep South BBQ style food - jjalapenos, cheese, sour cream, lime, ribs, jerk chicken, all that sort of stuff. Proper feasting.

God, I'm starving again just thinking about it. 

Sweetcorn fritters
Serves 4
2 cups milk
3 cups plain flour
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
Generous pinch of salt and pepper
2 cups of sweetcorn (I used frozen)
You can add a couple of spring onions into the mix too, but I prefer these separate

Mix together the milk, flour, eggs, seasoning and baking powder and stir until you have a smooth but quite thick batter. Then stir in the sweetcorn (if you're using frozen it might stick together, so make sure to break up any lumps).

Heat a non-stick frying pan to a medium-high heat and spoon the mix into the pan, to make whatever sized fritters you desire. If you have a good non-stick pan you shouldn't need any oil, but if you really need it use a teeny tiny bit - not too much as it just gets soaked up and the fritters get a bit saturated.  Also if they're really oily they might set your toaster on fire the next day (I don't know if that's true but I've got OCD so I want to warn you JUST IN CASE). 



They'll generally need a couple of minutes on each side. They'll look a bit sicky at first, but have faith. Flip them over when they start to go golden, then when they're done keep at a low heat in the oven, whilst you do the rest of the batch. 

Salsa verde

I don't think I'm alone in saying this, but...I fucking hate New Year's Eve. Always have, probably always will.

It started at the age of 16; the Millennium. A plan - of hanging around pubs that wouldn't let us in and flirting with boys in baggy trousers - somehow ended with me getting separated from my friends (before everyone had mobile phones) and being sat, at the stroke of midnight, on the steps of The Theatre Royal, sobbing like a beast and trying to convince one of my parents that they weren't too drunk to come and pick me up. I arrived home, an hour or so later, to find them all singing Joni Mitchell at the top of their lungs, and that the cat had pissed on our DIY cardboard millennium dome, which had come free with The Independent. Happy new year!  The following year a friend was seriously unwell once we'd gone out (not even through booze) - so unwell she couldn't walk home - so we spent about three hours in the rain trying to hail a taxi. Another year I was fresh from a festive dumping, dragged out in London, and trying to remember how to smile at potential suitors, when you know you've put on three stone since last attempting it. 

There have of course been some which weren't so bad, if I force myself not to be melodramatic. Those ones were largely based around big meals and going to local pubs, and didn't involve entry fees or public transport.

But it's just all so MEH and so BLEURGH.

As a result of this aversion, my main romantic aspiration in life became to meet a man who would be happy to stay in with me on a New Year's Eve. Being handsome and rich would be a perk, but the NYE thing really was the clincher. And, thankfully, I hit the jackpot two and a half years ago.  Yes, this one does have a penchant for brightly patterned trousers, and a great ability to ignore an overflowing bin, but for the past two years I've been allowed to spend the last evening of the year drinking fizz, eating steak and chips, and taking the piss out of people's dancing on the Hootenanny - and for that I am truly grateful.

And this is what accompanied my steak this year: salsa verde.  In my opinion, the best sidekick for steak there could be. When I lived at home we used to eat very healthily in the week, then the weekends were party time - started off with steak and chips on a Friday. My step dad used to make this salsa verde (although inevitably he'll look at this recipe and go 'that's not how I make it') and it has been a firm favourite ever since.

Don't be a wuss about the anchovies. You can barely taste them.

Salsa verde
Big handful of parsley (about a whole plant from a supermarket), finely chopped
3-4 anchovies, finely chopped
1 tbsp capers, finely chopped
1 spring onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
Pinch of chili flakes
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Rapeseed or olive oil (a good slug, about 5tbsp)

There's not much to say, just chop it all up and mix together!  It's not an exact science of a recipe, so if you want it less vinegary or more mustardy or whatever then you know what to do...

Brown bread ice cream

GUESS WHO GOT AN ICE CREAM MAKER FOR CHRISTMAS?!

Me. I did. Just in case you're less clever than I give you credit for.

Just think of all the different flavours of obesity I can be! Chocolate obese, strawberry obese, rum 'n' raisin obese. Granted, January isn't the time when most people decide to start necking down the sat fats, but as you know I sit in the 'couldn't give a shit' school of fad diets, all year round, so it works out just fine.  I'll go for a run or something. Sometime. Maybe.

My ice cream maker didn't appear in my stocking as a gleaming hunk of magimix surprise. Oh no. It was part of a long running campaign of subtle hints by me, such as 'I really want an ice cream maker' and 'How about you buy me an ice cream maker' and 'Have you bought me an ice cream maker yet?'. I still didn't expect to actually get one, but the boy came through. He's a good'un. 

Ice cream makers come in two different forms - ones where you put the bowl in the freezer and have to do a bit more manual labour, and ones that have the freezing compartment built in and do everything quicker and more efficiently. Turns out that if you want one of the ones with an inbuilt freezer they're pretty expensive, so a secondhand one is your best bet. Unless, of course, you're totally minted. Ben did a cracking job by buying this one through a charity shop's ebay site, so every time I shove a spoonful in my gob I can think of all the puppies I'm saving. Plus, I don't have to feel quite so bad when it sits in the cupboard for six months at a time.

This was the first attempt with the new toy (actually, it was the second, but we won't talk about the first). I've never had brown bread ice cream before, but it's awesome. I don't understand why none of the big brands do it - it's sort of nutty and biscuitty and it uses up all the old odds and sods of bread you've got lying around. I'm pretty sure you could do it without a machine too, just take it out of the freezer every half hour or so and churn it up, then put it back in again, ad infinitum.



Brown bread ice cream

1 cup double cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1tsp cinnamon (optional)
4 egg yolks
Brown bread crumbs (about 3 slices of bread worth)
1/2 cup of soft brown sugar

Firstly, whisk your egg yolks in a bowl with the caster sugar, and put to one side.  Then, in a saucepan heat your milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon, to almost boiling point. Once the cream mixture is hot, pour a little at a time into the egg, whisking as you go. Once all incorporated, return to the pan and heat again. Low and slow is the game here - if you have the heat too high then your eggs will scramble or the mix will curdle (if it does curdle you can probably rescue it with a quick whizz in a blender). Heat until it has thickened slightly. Recipes will tell you that it's done when it coats the back of the spoon, so go with that if you like.  Once done, allow to cool fully.

Whilst your custard is cooling, scatter the breadcrumbs and brown sugar onto a baking tray, mixing them together. Heat under the grill until the crumbs are toasted and the sugar has caramelised and gone sticky. It'll only take a couple of minutes and you need to watch it like a hawk. Allow to cool, then break up any big clumps.

When your custard is cool, transfer to the ice cream maker and switch on.  After about ten minutes it should be thickened and starting to freeze. Add in your breadcrumbs and give another five minutes or so, then transfer to a container in the freezer.

As I said, if you're doing this without a machine then you need to freeze the custard for about half an hour at a time and then take out and churn it by hand. But I am guessing at this somewhat, so you might want to google.